Urbanism, Advocacy, Bikes and Boats

Category Archives: Transportation

Sitting around the ‘Dirty Kitchen Table’ with John Frenaye and Tim Hamilton

I recently appeared on The Maryland Crabs Podcast, a podcast that covers the waterfront of local topics, to discuss parking, transportation and biking in Annapolis. In my role as Chair of the Annapolis Transportation Board, the subject of parking comes up at almost every monthly meeting. Since I’ve been in Annapolis, parking has always been handled in a fractious and ad hoc manner by the city. There have been many studies and virtually every transition team for an incoming mayor has recommended reforming the parking policy to be “holistic” so that all of the parking facilities (metered spots, residential parking permits and parking garages) all work together as a “system”. Despite these recommendations, the city has never been able to accomplish this goal on its own.

The Pantelides Administration made it a goal to implement this idea and actually did through a contract with SP+ Municipal Services, a national player in parking management. Of course people in Annapolis hate change – any change of any sort – so the implementation of the contract has not been without its detractors. One of the goals of hiring a “playa” in the parking management business is that they, as subject matter experts, can bring state of the art ideas in parking management to the table and in fact one of their contract deliverables is a Parking Utilization Analysis (full report, large PDF) in Annapolis that would contain recommendations for parking policy changes in the city (summary in The Capital).

As these recommendations filtered out to the public opinions on social media were abound. I got into it with John Frenaye and Tim Hamilton over their assertion that this contract was a “money grab” by SP+ and the city and other misunderstandings about the effort. So they invited me on the podcast to talk about this and my other passion, transportation cycling. It was a fun experience and a great conversation to bring some perspective to this activity for people who have not been intimately involved.

Unfortunately, we did not have as much time to talk about biking, which could fill an entire podcast itself, but I did make a few key points about transportation cycling in Annapolis (we need more connectivity!).

It was a lot of fun and we had a great conversation. According to Tim, there has been very positive feedback and a higher than usual download rate. I hope to be back on in the future to discuss the nexus of transportation, land use and municipal finances, because these are typically viewed as separate, siloed issues, when in reality they are different facets of the same issue that interplay in ways that most people don’t really understand.

Anne Arundel County has been fortunate over the years to have steady economic opportunities, due in part to our location near large metropolitan areas as well as a strong federal and state job base. These economic opportunities, along with a rich history, quaint historic areas and miles of coastline on the Chesapeake Bay make Anne Arundel an attractive place to live.

County residents want significant limits on growth to maintain their quality of life. They also insist on high-quality services like roads, public safety and education — along with low taxes. In the short term, the county can attempt to solicit more money from the state and federal governments, borrow more and promote land development to increase the tax base. But the federal and state governments have their own fiscal problems, and so are contributing less. Borrowing, such as with the recent lengthening of bond terms, has a limited effect. This leaves growth as the primary tool for raising the needed revenue.

Growth in and of itself is not bad. When done in a long-term, fiscally sustainable manner, growth builds wealth for residents, business and the county. The 2009 General Development Plan discusses balancing land use, growth and fiscal policies, but much of the development in the county continues to be auto-centric, even in the targeted growth areas like Parole and Odenton.

We often forget that auto-centric suburban development is an experiment that has never been tried anywhere before. We assume it is the natural order of things because it is what we see all around, and in our collective psyche is the “American dream,” a non-negotiable way of life that must be maintained at all costs. But it is only in the last two generations that we have scaled places to the automobile. What we are finding is that the underlying financing mechanisms of the suburban era operate like a classic Ponzi scheme, with ever-increasing rates of growth necessary to sustain long-term liabilities.

The root of the problem is that auto-centric development, in which residential and commercial areas are widely separated, requires tremendous amounts of land as well as infrastructure that is costly to build and maintain, while yielding very low tax revenue per acre. As long as strong growth continues and new revenue is generated to cover the short-term costs, we have the illusion of wealth because we are delaying infrastructure maintenance and personnel costs. This is the current state of Anne Arundel County.

Even with robust growth, we are starting to see the effects of these long term-liabilities, as indicated in the General Development Plan:

“Over the years, due to rising construction costs and other factors, the county has struggled to keep pace with the ongoing demand for maintenance, renovation and rehabilitation, and replacement of existing infrastructure and facilities that have been in place to serve the existing population and employment base.”

For citizens, this is most visible in the roads and traffic resulting from this development pattern. We cannot build our way out of congestion — we don’t have the land and most certainly don’t have the money. Yet we continue to promote development that virtually requires the use of an automobile.

The General Development Plan has goals, policies and actions to produce fiscally productive development, yet our specific regulations that developers must follow still produce the same patterns: greatly separated residential and commercial areas; big, dangerous roads; throwaway strip malls and parking lots. All this requires lots of driving. And it does not generate enough tax revenue to maintain the required infrastructure. We need to change these regulations to return to a traditional pattern of development in which neighborhoods are at a human scale with appropriate mixed use — places where people can walk or bike for many of their daily needs — while having viable transit options to connect these neighborhoods with the Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas. There are still many places like this remaining in the country, such as the suburbs built before World War II. We should be emulating them for a fiscally sustainable future.

This essay was part of Becoming the best is a series of essays exploring the question of what it would take to make Annapolis and Anne Arundel County “the best.”

Last night, the Annapolis Planning Commission faced their Kobayashi Maru test. How will they decide whether access to the Rocky Gorge planned development is via Aris T Allen Boulevard or Yawl Rd: place the lives of Rocky Gorge residents in grave danger by turning off and on a highway or assuring the destruction of the Oxford Landing neighborhood with 48 homes worth of traffic down their main street?

Followers of this development have been watching this issue come to a boil slowly over the last two years. But, for those not familiar with the development and this issue specifically, let me recap.

Rocky Gorge is a planned development of 46 units of single family and townhouses south of Aris T Allen Boulevard. For a good overview, you can see the site plans here (76MB) or search for project PD2016-001 on the Annapolis eTRAKiT project tracking site for all the project details.

The project has a long and sordid history with many, many complicated facets. It began with two annexations of land in 2003 and 2005 followed by development approval (SE2005-11-547) and initial grading, the financial crisis of 2008, bankruptcy and sale to a capital management firm and most recently restarting the development in 2014. This history, while important to how we got to this point, is for the most part, water under the bridge, not to mention that the more you dig into understanding the history, the more questions arise. That said, one of the limitations placed on the development by the annexation agreement was no direct access from Aris T Allen Boulevard. However, that was predicated on a “relief road” south of the development, but for many practical and environmental reasons was never, and will never be built.

As the design and review of the restarted development progressed, due to the access limitation in the annexation, Yawl Rd was the only way in and out, straight through the center of the Oxford Landing development built in the late 1980s. And of course the residents objected, so resolution R-33-14 to remove the annexation restrictions was introduced to the City Council. If passed would open the door to alternative access via Aris T Allen Boulevard. It wound it’s way through the process and was ultimately passed. I wrote about it here and here and the Planning Commission, Transportation Board, and The Capital also thought it was not a good idea. Once the restriction was removed, it went to the State Highway Administration (SHA) for a decision as they “own” the road (MD 665). After an additional traffic study and meetings with the SHA, access was granted with addition of acceleration and deceleration lanes.

Rocky Gorge – Access Via Yawl Rd

Once this access was granted by SHA, the site plan was substantial altered to change the access from Yawl Rd to Aris T Allen. As such, the project went back to the Planning Commission, which brings us up to date for the meeting last night and the Kobayashi Maru test.

Rocky Gorge – Access Via Aris T Allen (right in right out)

The developer’s representative Allan Hyatt gave a long and somewhat tedious presentation. He is a lawyer and every presentation I have seen him make to a city Board or Panel is treated in language and actions like a trial, explicitly stating everything for the record along with expert testimony, even though the Planning Commission does not officially recognize “expert witnesses” (a point of snickering with the chair). This was a public hearing so a number of people spoke, residents, representatives of ARTMA, the Annapolis Neck Peninsula Federation, Oxford Landing, and Alderwomen Finlayson/Pindell-Charles, indicating significant safety problems with either access scenario – deadly car crashes on Aris T Allen or kids run over by cars on Yawl Rd.

Those were the only two choices on the table: 1. Approve the application as submitted (design with ingress/egress to Aris T Allen only, other than a pedestrian/emergency connection to Yawl Rd) or 2. Deny the application and revert to the prior approval (design with ingress/egress via Yawl Rd only). Virtually all the Planning Commission members expressed frustration with these equally bad choices. There must be alternatives that would not be unsafe for users Aris T Allen or residents of Oxford Landing, but how? Like Captain Kirk, they chose a different way: leave the public hearing open indefinitely and allow the applicant – who fortunately saw the writing on the wall – to look for alternatives.

It is my hope that all parties involved can think about innovative solutions that attempt to mitigate the compounded mistakes and prior planning decisions that lead up to this scenario and hopefully learn a lesson and apply it future developments. The suburban design pattern of cul de sacs and hierarchical road networks is a detriment to incremental growth that is so important to a healthy Annapolis as it was intended by design to be static and does not scale well. See this short video for a primer on incremental development and why it is important. Much of downtown Annapolis and inner West Street developed this way and has been better off for it.

Contemporary cycling in the United States is largely viewed by the public as a recreational endeavor. However, it was not always this way. For distances greater than that easily covered on foot, bicycles were the preferred mode of local transportation prior to the early 1900s when the automobile came into wider use. During the next half decade, bicycles were seen primarily as children’s toys. The 1970s and 1980s brought a new boom in bicycle sales for adult recreational purposes and this was augmented by the “Lance effect” in the early 2000s, introducing a large number of people to performance cycling.

As a result, most infrastructure built in the latter half of the 20th century was geared around this recreational aspect of cycling, primarily off road paths in parks, “rails to trails” efforts and even mountain bike facilities. It is only in the last 10 years that urban areas have started to look again at bicycles as part of their transportation strategy and to construct suitable infrastructure to implement it. By most measures these efforts have been fairly successful in increasing the numbers of transportation cyclists, but still not to a level of places like the Netherlands where there is upwards of 30% bicycle mode share. The United States will likely never achieve that kind of mode share if for no other reason than our systemic land use issues, but in areas where the land use patterns do support bicycle transportation, we can get to more modest shares like that of Portland (7+%). What actions can be taken take to increase this mode share?

Largest Gains

There are four types of transportation cyclists: Strong and Fearless (<1%), Enthused and Confident (7%), Interested but Concerned (60%) and No Way No How (33%). To this I would add a fifth group: “Unseen Bicyclists”, who have no particular interest in cycling other than as a nearly free mode of transportation that is faster than walking. In order to get to work they often must ride in inhospitable areas for cyclists.

In years past, transportation cycling in urban areas has included the three of the five smallest groups, personified by the bike messenger (Strong and Fearless), the racer who decides to commute (Enthused and Confident) and the guy riding the squeaky mountain bike on the sidewalk late at night (Unseen Bicyclist). Together, these groups never reach the critical mass/tipping point where transportation cycling would be seen as something normal people do. The question is how to encourage the largest untapped group (Interested but Concerned) to embrace transportation cycling as a way of life?

Infrastructure Is The Key

I use the word “infrastructure” here as it captures the Zeitgeist, but to be more precise, I mean the built environment that cyclists experience trying to get from place A to place B. Interested but Concerned cyclists who would definitely drive to a safe place to ride recreationally, first and foremost, need to feel safe in order to participate in transportation cycling. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition that, if not met, significantly degrades the return on investment of any infrastructure as it will not be widely used. Critics will point out that there s no demand, and thus a waste of money. The largest factor in achieving this perception of safety is separating cyclists from fast moving vehicles. An on road bike lane on a 6 lane arterial with speeds of 40+ mph, often the result of Complete Streets efforts implemented by state DOTs, while fine for a fast road cyclist, is not going to make the average Interested but Concerned cyclist feel safe.

On road bike lane on MD 2 in Edgewater, Maryland. I ride here often, but I am in the Strong and Fearless Group. (Google)

The second condition that must be met to entice Interested but Concerned cyclists is that the routes need to be direct and efficient from a time standpoint. Dedicated cyclists inherently like cycling as an activity and as a result are willing to “pay extra” in terms of time and effort to do it, but in order for regular people to take up transportation cycling, there has to be real value over other modes. Most recreational bicycle facilities that feel safe are often circuitous or if they are direct, require cyclists to stop at every cross street or curb cut or even worse require pressing a beg button and waiting a full light cycle, making the trip an annoying and time consuming process. As Strong Towns pointed out in the “Follow the Rules Bikers” piece, typically our cycling infrastructure is geared to automobiles, which puts bicycles on the same footing as cars. If there is no time saving advantage, why not just drive? That’s what the Interested but Concerned cyclist would do.

Residential neighborhoods with low and slow traffic offer acceptable routes for the Interested but Concerned cyclists and can be direct if the development pattern is a grid of streets with good connectivity. But so often local subdivision regulations or requests by residents close off streets to through traffic and once they are closed, very hard to reopen even for pedestrian or bicycle access. Yet, they can have a significant positive impact on the efficiency of a route.

Victor Parkway in Annapolis, Maryland has a fence between adjacent neighborhoods. The only way around is using a notorious five lane arterial that adds a half mile distance. It took a significant effort with the City of Annapolis to get even the pedestrian gate opened. It helps but is still unpleasant for cyclists. (Google)

Start With An Insider

A decidedly un-Strong Towns approach to getting Interested but Concerned cyclists engaged in transportation cycling would be to advocate for a huge pot of Federal transportation dollars and plan a perfect Shangri La bicycle network. Municipal governments often won’t do anything because of the perfect solution fallacy. They know this approach is not workable so anything incremental is rejected because it isn’t a complete plan and problems would still exist.

A better Strong Towns approach would be to work incrementally starting initially with a “do no harm” mantra and building on that to address the issues mentioned above. The number one action a municipal government can take to prevent further harm is adding a dedicated pedestrian/bicycle planner to the staff who has a seat at the table for any infrastructure development and maintenance projects. The singular focus of a subject matter expert who really understands the perspective of the Interested but Concerned, can point out bad designs before they are implemented. Additionally, the insider cultivating relationships with local cycling advocacy groups can be a force multiplier in this regard, utilizing a broad network of people who understand issues at a hyper-local level. This is the foot in the door that will provide internal advocacy for early input to projects. Collectively that will improve the infrastructure over time to raise the interest and reduce the concern in transportation cycling.

An Illustrative Project

I will end with a local example that highlights how a cycling subject matter expert might have prevented a disaster from happening. In Anne Arundel County, there is an on road bike lane along a well-traveled recreational route to view the Chesapeake Bay from Annapolis Maryland where I live. It’s essentially a 4-5’ shoulder with bike lane markings. Not great, but good enough to make the average recreational cyclist comfortable, and sadly one of only two marked bike lanes in a county with 4000 lane miles of road under its jurisdiction.

Bay Ridge Avenue immediately south of Annapolis, Maryland. The driveway on the right is being expanded to accommodate a church expansion.

The expansion of a local church required a turn lane according to the County code. However, this situation was complicated by the presence of a park next door. The park has some recreational paths that are contained within the park and do not serve a transportation purpose in any way. The engineering company that did the design work is a respected regional firm, but the design that was approved by the County makes very little sense from a transportation cyclist’s point of view.

The bike lane prior to the driveway was replaced with a turn lane. Although common when turn lanes are added, not a good situation for cyclists. But the most egregious change was after the driveway, where the bike lane was blocked with a concrete curb and only resumes after the curb radius where the park path exists to the road. Since virtually all cyclists will be going through, this presents an extremely dangerous situation for cyclists who can get squeezed into the curb by a passing car.

The design makes an assumption that due to the proximity of the park all cyclists are going to be riding on the path around the park – the standard recreational assumption. Because the County does not have a subject matter expert on staff, they assumed that extending the park path in lieu of the bike lane was a benefit, not a detriment. Anyone with local/contextual knowledge would have flagged this design as unresponsive to the typical cyclist pattern and it could have been easily corrected prior to construction with no adverse effect to the church by maintaining the bike lane straight through. Sadly, it was not seen until after concrete had been poured, making a correction difficult and costly.

A shorter version also appeared as an Op Ed column in The Capital on May 11, 2016.

Aerial view of Annapolis, Maryland (Library of Congress)

Let me get this out of the way: I am a bike guy. I love bikes, all kinds – transportation bikes, off road bikes, racing bikes and classic bikes.

But that’s not why I ride a bike for transportation.

I currently reside in Annapolis, the capital city of Maryland, a smallish city of about 40,000 people. The dominant view of cycling here is that it is an athletic or recreational endeavor. You know, “put the bike on the car and drive somewhere to ride”. However, Annapolis is ideal for getting around by bike. It’s compact, only eight square miles, and you can pretty much get to any part of the city and even the surrounding areas that are experiencing a lot of urbanized growth with a flat two or three mile bike ride.

Annapolis is very compact.

This is easily within the ability of most people. I ride my 1972 Schwinn around town because it’s a convenient and economical mode of transportation to accomplish my daily business of getting to the DC commuter bus stop for work, shopping, and socializing around town. But there are too few of us and we often feel like lone voices in the wilderness. Thankfully, many cities around the world and a growing number of cities in the U.S. are proving that bicycles can easily be a part of a modern transportation system. What’s missing here to make transportation cycling appealing for more than just the “Strong and Fearless” – or those who have no other choice – are the connecting off-road paths and bike lanes called for in the city’s excellent, but mostly ignored, bicycle master plan.

Bikes are cheap and save money. Despite this area having a very high median income, many residents in the city pay a disproportionally large portion of their income to own and operate a car, never mind multiple cars. Using a bike for around town trips can easily decrease the number of vehicles a family needs to have and saves wear and tear by using the car only for those trips that require it. Riding a bike for my daily needs saves thousands of dollars per year in my family budget. Relatively inexpensive bikes can easily haul a surprisingly large amount of stuff, require very little maintenance and avoid the city parking costs. And, bike riding if viewed as something regular people do, provides equity of access to our streets as Bike Law’s Peter Wilborn writes about in Charleston SC.

Yes, bikes can do real work. Extracycle makes great hauling bikes (I do not own one or have any financial interest in the company) and some awesomeness from a local Moth sailor.

Bikes are cheap for the city, too. A lot of the auto-based traffic here is short trips around town, which can easily be done on bikes. The city is geographically constrained by two rivers and the Chesapeake Bay and as a result land is extremely valuable. While the city is in reasonable fiscal shape overall, it has neither the means nor the land to widen roads for more cars. Development is a hot topic here, and the general opinion is we need to lock the door in the Party Analogy. It inevitably conjures the traffic “boogeyman” as the assumption is that an additional person equates to an addition car. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. There are many small bike projects the city could do that would have a high return on investment in mobility. We often hear that Annapolis is not affordable. With a good cycling infrastructure, we can support additional development and can attract younger people who will likely choose bikes for a significant portion of their transportation needs. It doesn’t take much of a shift to bikes to have a large effect on traffic congestion and amount of needed parking.

And finally, there has been a lot of discussion recently in various forums here about rampant speeding in the city. I believe much of this occurs because people spend so much time in their cars in traffic that they have become chronically frustrated, often expressing that frustration as impatience or even road rage towards other drivers, walkers and bike riders. Spending time on the other side of the windshield brings the perspective of non-drivers into clear focus. Everyday riding makes me appreciate the luxury when I do use the car, especially if the weather is bad or I am tired. As a result, I am much more relaxed and courteous behind the wheel when I drive.

May is National Bike Month and we should celebrate transportation cycling. If you are a recreational rider, throw a basket on your bike and make a few trips to the store; if you haven’t ridden in a bike in a while, dust off that bike in your garage or grab an old beater from Craigslist and give it a try. The more people ride, the safer it is for everyone and the more apparent it will become to city governments that bikes can perform real work.

A very interesting Planning Commission meeting last night (4/15/2015). The agenda item of interest to me was R-33-14, allowing access to a new development via the “highway” portion of Aris T. Allen Boulevard. This is a multifaceted issue dealing with prior annexation agreements from over ten years ago, transportation, development patterns and the wishes of existing residents.

My focus on this issue is not so much the effect on Aris T. Allen from a strict transportation point of view, rather that it is an unsatisfying solution to a much larger development pattern problem outside the core of downtown and existing older neighborhoods. The underlying issue is that new development is done as auto centric “islands” that are unconnected by design. This development model has the underlying assumption that people drive everywhere. While that may be unfortunately true to a certain extent, it results in a bad experience for anyone outside a car. It is also bad for drivers because that model promotes excessive driving and auto congestion, which everyone rails about, and as a result, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. One aspect to the proposed resolution is that if it is passed, access to the existing neighborhood would explicitly not be allowed. The only way in and out would be via Aris T. Allen. To their credit, the Oxford Landing association has said there would be pedestrian and bicycle access.

As you will see in my written testimony below, this lack of connectivity is endemic throughout the City. With few exceptions, developments over that last 10-20 years and planned developments (where I have had access to site plans) also show this development pattern. For example, the Hayes property now called “Annapolis Townes at Neal Farm” (location map, site plans), Crystal Springs, Reserve at Quiet Waters, and upcoming Enclave at Spa (map location) all demonstrate this issue. This unconnected development pattern is incompatible with a city and is not sustainable on any level.

Thankfully, the Planning Commission voted to recommend the City Council not pass this resolution. Most of the members felt as I do that this is just not the right solution to the problem at hand brought forth by the residents of the existing Oxford Landing neighborhood. Ultimately, this will go to the City Council for a vote. Stay tuned…

I submitted the following written testimony in addition to making a few comments in person:

As proposed, allowing additional ingress/egress to the section of Aris T. Allen Boulevard between the MD 2 interchange and Chinquapin Round Road will be extremely dangerous. Vehicles travel 50-60, even 70 mph down this section as it is a limited access highway. Allowing vehicular access from the proposed development will result in slow speed turning movements mixed with highway speed through traffic. High differentials in speed are the cause of many auto collisions and with speed differentials of 50 mph, they will likely be severe resulting in serious injury.

Additionally, slow speed turning and merging vehicles will degrade the motorist experience because it will very much interrupt the flow of traffic. The fundamental purpose of Aris T. Allen Boulevard is to move vehicles quickly from US 50 to Forest Drive. Allowing a turning traffic with high speed differentials will reduce its effectiveness for the majority of people who use this corridor for the sake of a few in a small development. Furthermore, closing off access to the existing Oxford Landing development and requiring all ingress/egress via Aris T. Allen Boulevard is even more egregious because it will be impractical at best or unsafe at worst to get in and out of the new development unless you are in a car. Forcing pedestrians and cyclists onto Aris T. Allen Boulevard will be extremely unsafe and unpleasant.

For sure, I am sympathetic to the concerns of the Oxford Landing residents about having the new development ingress/egress via Yawl Road. It is a heavily settled area and a fairly narrow street. That said, while this issue appears at first view to be just a “transportation” issue, it is important to view it in a broader land use, development and transportation context because they are intimately linked. In this particular case, it is not just an issue of access to a new subdivision, i.e. where do you route the streets, it is an issue of how the development(s) is designed and built including the mix (or lack thereof) of uses, the types of housing units and the local transportation network which have to be viewed holistically. We have made development choices in the City of Annapolis that have had very negative livability consequences over the last 30 years because of our tendency to silo these issues and address them independently.

The newer development on the fringe of the City, specifically along the Aris T. Allen/Forest corridor has been done in a distinctly suburban pattern. By this I mean unconnected subdivisions with a hierarchical auto-centric road network. Cul de Sacs are most emblematic of this development pattern. I have written an extensive article on this development pattern (“Traditional Street Grids are the Answer For Future Growth In Annapolis”), which is attached to this testimony. To summarize it, we have allowed – and continue to allow – this auto-centric development pattern that has become de rigueur for developers since suburban boom of the 60s. It is this development pattern that is significantly contributing to auto congestion, unsafe streets and inconvenient routes for pedestrians and cyclists.

This suburban development pattern is highly inappropriate for a city. People who live in a city want to walk and bike places because with the density of a city, driving everywhere is inefficient and impractical. In fact if you flip this around, the City needs people to be able to easily and safely walk and bike to function effectively in a vibrant way. The last thing we need is more auto dependence, as this is not sustainable emotionally, physically or fiscally. This means having neighborhoods with traditional connected street grids that provide direct access for people walking and riding bikes as well as driving cars. Our older traditional neighborhoods in the City – Eastport, West Annapolis, Homewood – were all built this way and all transportation modes coexist more or less. We did it this way for a hundreds of years prior to the suburban building boom of the 60s. There is a reason we did it this way: it works.

What is proposed in R-33-14 is essentially short-term solution to the larger problems created by this suburban development pattern. I realize there is a lot of water under this bridge since there is existing development there, but we have to start addressing this issue now before it gets worse. The more band aids added on top of the fundamental problem, the worse the problem will get. Practically, there may be some things that can be done by a developer to provide additional access beyond Yawl Road that do not include Aris T. Allen Boulevard. These are things the Planning Commission and the Office of Planning and Zoning can address during the review of this project. It may be more than a developer wants to do but if there is truly market demand then these accommodations can be made. The City should not let bad development happen in order to chase tax revenue from new development when it contributes to a long-term underlying problem.

In summary, R-33-14 should be voted down and alternative solutions should be sought for access to the planned development.

One of the most acknowledged problems in the Annapolis area is our congested “corridors” because they provide the only way in and out of various areas in the City and surrounding parts of the County. If there is a closure, mayhem ensues. In addition, these roads – really STROADS now – are terrible for everyone: drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and businesses because they do nothing well. If you are not familiar with this term, I highly recommend you watch this video to understand why they are so unproductive. They don’t move cars fast, they are dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists and are typically ugly, unloved places people do not want to spend any time other than driving in and out, which hurts businesses.

Pretty much everyone accepts this status quo and does not fundamentally question why it is this way and what can be done differently to work better for everyone. All we hear is either “no more development” or “add more lanes”. Keeping things exactly as they are now with a development moratorium and/or adding capacity are just short term band aid solutions that are either unrealistic or too expensive; as unpopular as this opinion may be, development is going to happen, that is the way it works in the free market in this country. However, development is not the problem; the development pattern is the problem. Transportation and land use must be considered holistically to address the fundamental issue: how we design neighborhoods and neighborhood streets. We have gone away from a development pattern utilizing grids of neighborhood streets that has worked well for hundreds of years to one that emphasizes single point of failure roads that prioritize automobile traffic over all else. In the newer parts of Annapolis, we have allowed – and continue to allow – this auto-centric development pattern that has become de rigueur for developers since suburban boom of the 60s.

I want to explore the development patterns in Annapolis’ context and illustrate how the conventional development wisdom of the last 50 years – the only thing many people know – keeps luring us in the wrong direction. Despite the forward-looking guidelines in our planning documents, there are many examples of developments in various stages along this corridor that are incongruous with the ideas put forth in those planning documents. At this point, there is no simple fix; that said, we have to work towards a different paradigm that I discuss below if we expect it to ever improve the situation.

Development Pattern of Annexed Land

Over the years, the City of Annapolis has been slowly annexing land from Anne Arundel County on the southwest side of the city along the Forest Drive corridor as this is the only adjacent land available for new (not infill development). City Planning and Zoning preduced a map of annexations over the last 200+ years (from the report of the Annexation Working Group from 2005):

Annexation of land over the history of Annapolis. Note how the street layout changes with time.

There are many motivations for annexation and they are often controversial but if it is done in a productive way, i.e. the land use pattern generates more in tax revenues than it costs the city in services over the full lifecycle, it’s not a bad thing. But I digress, that is a topic for another time.

The development done between 1980 and 2000 to the south and west of Aris T. Allen/Forest Drive has been a very typical suburban template indicated by curvy streets, cul de sacs and a hierarchical road network (where smaller streets feed into a collector road that feeds into an arterial). There are a lot of reasons why this evolution happened: perceived safety, wide spread use of the automobile and federal housing policy among them, but this pattern has become the standard template for the last 50 years in all but the most established cities. Compare the oldest areas of Annapolis, Downtown, West Annapolis and Eastport, with the newer development to the west and south and you can see this exact evolution of street layout in our area:

Evolution of street layouts over the 20th century.

A lot has been written about this evolution in recent years, but a nice summary is from an article by Emily Badger, who now writes for the Washington Post, entitled Debunking the Cul-de-Sac:

Through their research, Garrick and colleague Wesley Marshall are now making the argument that we got it all wrong: We’ve really been designing communities that make us drive more, make us less safe, keep us disconnected from one another, and that may even make us less healthy.

Street grids provide intrinsic benefits. First, they allow the most direct access between two places. This efficiency is especially important when walking or riding a bike, but also for drivers. Second, a grid provides multiple paths to get from place to place which has the effect of distributing cars throughout the grid and minimizing congestion. And, if one route is blocked, there will be equal alternatives. As long as the street design is done correctly to maintain slower traffic appropriate for a residential street, there will not be issues with speeding. Third, with a grid of slow speed city streets, there is no need for additional infrastructure for other transportation modes such as bicycles because these streets are inherently “complete streets“.

We certainly see the effects of the lack of a grid along Forest Drive. There are no through streets which funnels all cars, pedestrians and cyclists onto Forest Drive. That is the intention in this development pattern where it is assumed that all trips are by car. From a practical standpoint, it is unpleasant at best and unsafe at worst to make trips on foot or by bike so no one does, which promotes even more auto dependence. To make matters worse, the commercial development essentially makes Forest Drive into a local street with driveways/access to business while simultaneously trying to move high volumes of cars quickly. Frankly, it does neither well, the classic definition of a STROAD.

This was recognized in the annexation report of 2005 and notes that this has been an issue all the way back to the late 1980s:

“A word on Forest Drive: Currently Forest Drive has a high number of signalized and un-signalized intersections and points of access. It does not operate as an arterial highway and instead is similar in function to that urged by community residents during the City’s 1989 Forest Drive Sector Study: a “city street” in character and function. The land use plan should clearly confirm and re-articulate the role and function for Forest Drive to help establish reasonable expectations about viable levels of service, congestion, and delay.”

The report goes on to say there should be a “parallel road” to help alleviate future congestion:

“The construction and development of the proposed parallel road should likewise be guided by design standard that is agreed upon. Certainly, the plan should identify the Forest Drive parallel road as a future corridor and designate future development nodes along that road, if appropriate. “

Furthermore the 2009 Comprehensive Plan continues this thought in the Land Use and Transportation chapters for the Forest Drive Opportunity Area by indicating the need to have more intense, mixed use, urban center low development with an upgraded “transportation network”, but unfortunately does not explicitly state the form of the street network.

Without a significant push for a street grid network along this corridor, nothing will change. While we have continued to add capacity with successive Forest Drive widening projects, the congestion problems are not any better. We can not continue development in this way and apply the conventional congestion mitigation solutions of more lanes and wider roads if we want improvement. The old adage will continue to apply: “If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.”

Current and Planned Development Projects

There are several development projects proposed on annexed land that have preliminary site plans, The Reserve at Quiet Waters and Crystal Springs. These two are very controversial for many reasons, and I am not making a statement for or against here, but suffice it to say both follow the development patterns of the cul-de-sac generation, rather than knitting those developments into a traditional city street grid along the southwest side of Forest Drive. This is clear from their site plans here and here. For sure a different pattern would not solve the myriad of issues around those developments (schools, environment etc.), but would go a long way to supporting the additional density if there were a traditional street grid. The City should insist street grids be incorporated into these developments so that eventually as subsequent development occurs, the entire area will all knit together as a comprehensive city, rather than let these projects exist as development islands requiring auto transport in and out as we typically see in subdivisions in rural/greenfield areas.

Unfortunately, this “island mentality” seems to be winning out. This is what we have to change. Instead of thinking about how we can do things differently, the future looks like doubling down on the existing pattern as indicated by legislation recently introduced at the City Council (Resolution R-33-14) . This legislation would allow vehicular access to a planned neighborhood off Aris T. Allen (MD 665) along the “highway” portion between the MD 2 interchange and the Aris T. Allen/Forest Drive/Chinquapin Round Road intersection. While this appears to be a “transportation” issue (disclosure, I sit on the City Transportation Board), it is a mistake to characterize this resolution this way; it is really a holistic land use and transportation issue.

A suburban style (i.e. non-grid layout) neighborhood exists in that area called Oxford Landing built in the late 1980s which is centered around Yawl Road:

Just to the west of Oxford Landing is a parcel that a developer wants to put in additional residential units, but the only access would be through Yawl Road, which is understandably untenable for the existing residents. This legislation would allow access to this new development from Aris T. Allen. Not only that, it would forbid access through Oxford Landing. This is what the area looks like:

Satellite View of the proposed area. The proposed access to Aris T. Allen is a the top of the image.

Street View south on Aris T. Allen. The proposed access has an existing curb cut on the right.

Adding access to Aris T. Allen will be extremely dangerous. This is a limited access highway and people travel 50-60 even 70 mph down that section. If you add turning vehicles in and out at 10 mph there will be serious crashes and deaths because of high differential speeds. To add insult to injury it will be worse for drivers because it will interrupt the flow of traffic, the primary function of this road. Why take a road that is meant to move cars efficiently (and nothing else) by design and intentionally degrade its effectiveness? Furthermore, closing off access through the existing development and forcing all access via Aris T. Allen is even more egregious because it will be impossible to get in and out of that neighborhood unless you are in a car. What are pedestrians and cyclists supposed to do? Aris T. Allen is meant for cars and nothing else.

This area needs to focus on adding a street grid, rather than continuing with the current pattern and band aid solutions such as the proposed Aris T. Allen access. That is the only way that additional development can occur without making an existing problem worse. What is proposed is incredibly counter to the ideas for a strong and resilient city put forth in the Comprehensive Plan. In the ideal world it would look like this:

A traditional street grid imposed over the existing area including the Crystal Springs land.

I show this not so much because I think it could practically be done at this point, but as an illustration of a pattern that has worked very well in the older sections of the city such as West Annapolis and Eastport. That said, any new development should be required to add additional streets that provide through access to create as much of a grid as possible. If this can not be accomplished, perhaps the development should not be allowed on the grounds that it does not conform is not consistent with the Comprehensive Plan.

Finally, there is additional property along Forest Drive proper (the “Samaras property”) that is in early stages of annexation. This is part of the Forest Drive Opportunity Area as outlined in the Comprehensive Plan. This area represents the best opportunity to implement a traditional street grid because there is a significant amount of undeveloped or redevelopable land and it is expressly called out in the Comprehensive Plan for such development. Given there is already a mix of commercial and residential development, this could easily turn into the next neighborhood like West Annapolis, where people can, and do walk to near by services without needing to drive, as long as it is done with an appropriate pattern.

Forest Drive Opportunity Area and Reserve at Quiet Waters with a traditional street grid.

Summary

While there is some justification for a non-traditional pattern in low density rural areas where it is assumed you only travel by car and will remain that way, this is not what Annapolis is about. We are a city; we should act like a city. People who live in a city want, and in many cases need, to walk and bike places. Annapolis can support more density, will have more density in the future, and in fact needs more density if it is to have a workable transit system. However, the last thing we need in Annapolis is more auto dependent density. This means having neighborhoods with traditional street grids that provide efficient and pleasant access for people walking and riding bikes as well as driving cars. Eastport, West Annapolis and Homewood were all built this way and all transportation modes coexist more or less. This is what makes these areas so desirable. We did it this way for hundreds of years prior to the suburban building boom and there is a reason we did it this way: it works. The litmus test: can you take an easy, pleasant walk to the grocery store? I wrote about this recently.

Implementation of street grids in new development and redevelopment should be a critical focus for the City planning organizations. Sure it may be more expensive, require compromise by residents and developers and may require more than a developer wants to do, but if development is done in a way that makes the City stronger, the return on investment will be there for the residents, the City and developers. We should not let bad development happen because we want to chase a tax base while it kicking a mess we see coming down the road, only to address it with no good choices at City/tax payer expense. I am not anti development, I am just anti bad development. We have an excellent Comprehensive Plan that outlines this, we just have to follow it, otherwise our choices just get worse as time goes on.